Sweden and America After 1860: A Research Project

SWEDEN AND AMERICA AFTER 1860:
A RESEARCH PROJECT'
STEN CARLSSON
During the last few years, reference has been made in the
SWEDISH PIONEER HISTORICAL QUARTERLY to the research project
on Sweden and America conducted by the Department of History
at the University of Uppsala. Some of the books and papers
produced by members of the project have also been reviewed.
The project itself has, however, never been presented in full
figure.
The project was started in 1962, thanks to a generous five-year
grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. The
Council had chosen Uppsala as a convenient center in Northern
Europe for studies in American civilization and decided, after
discussions with the rector of the University, Torgny Segerstedt,
and some representatives of the departments of English and
History, to support a professorship in American literature and
position for a research assistant ( f o r s k a r a s s i s t e n t ) in history. At
the same time, money was given to buy books within the fields of
American literature and American history.
The Council set up a condition for its grant: after five years
the Swedish authorities had to take full responsibility for the
activities now started. This condition was fulfilled. The Swedish
Government took over the professorship in American literature
and the research within the Department of History was con­tinued
and widened, thanks to grants from Statens H u m a n i s t i s ka
Forskningsråd and Riksbankens J u b i l e u m s f o n d . A special Sec­tion
for American History ( A v d e l n i n g e n för a m e r i k a n s k h i s t o r i a)
was founded in 1962 in the Department of History and at the
same time a research project, called "Sweden and America After
1860." This project was—as are all similar projects—to be lim­ited
in time. It will be finished in 1976, but the Section will re­main
and the research continue. The research project has been
supervised by me from its beginning but the current daily work
has been led by the research assistants, namely Håkan Berggren
(1962-66), Sune Åkerman (1966-73), and Harald Runblom
204
(1974-). About thirty postgraduate students ( d o k t o r a n d e r and
l i c e n t i a n d e r ) have belonged to the project, as well as many
undergraduates. Thirteen of the members have published their
dissertations for the Ph.D. within the framework of the project,
in the series S t u d i a H i s t o r i c a U p s a l i e n s i a . Five others wrote un­published
theses ( l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g a r ) for the filosofie l i c e n t i a t ­examen
(this degree no longer exists). The final number of
Ph.D.s (filosofie d o k t o r e r ) within the group will be something
like twenty.
Research on the basis of projects was an innovation for the
Faculties of Liberal Arts in the early 1960s. Our project is one
of the oldest and largest in the humanistic disciplines. Many
times before groups of scholars on the postgraduate level had
cooperated by writing dissertations in the same field. But before
the 1960s they had had no common staff that furthered their
work by collecting excerpts, making statistical calculations, tak­ing
care of the typing, etc., and no common localities where
it was possible to have daily, stimulating discussions and to
receive guidance from professors and other teachers.
Some critics insist that this new system abolishes individual
responsibility and independence. This is not true. First, it must
be remembered that all cooperation and guidance is voluntary
and that it is quite possible to work alone. Besides, the author of
a dissertation still has to defend it in public and is quite re­sponsible
for his or her part of the project. A special situation,
not necessarily connected with the project research, occurs
when two students write a dissertation together. As scholars
they are both responsible for the whole text, but at the public
disputation they have to divide responsibility for the different
chapters between themselves.
The central theme of the project has been the mass emigra­tion
of more than one million people from Sweden to North
America. A great share of the attention has been paid to the
Swedish background of this movement. For this purpose, dif­ferent
parts of Sweden have been studied intensively. Two im­portant
investigations of this type are still unpublished, namely
Ulf Ebbeson's and Paul Noreen's l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g a r on north­western
Östergötland and southern Dalsland, respectively. Emi­gration
from Småland and Öland has been analysed briefly (S.
Carlsson in Historielärarnas förenings årrskrift. 1966-67). Some
205
members of the Uppsala group have studied emigration and in­ternal
migration from provinces in Finland, namely Swedish-speaking
Åland (a l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g by Frank Blomfelt) and
partially Swedish-speaking Österbotten (a paper by E. DeGeer
and H. Wester, published in Österbotten in 1975).
The first dissertation dealing with emigration from a rural
area was Björn Rondahl's book, E m i g r a t i o n , f o l k o m f l y t t n i n g och
säsongarbete i e t t sågverksdistrikt i södra Hälsingland 1865-
1910. Söderala k o m m u n med särskild hänsyn t i l l L j u s n e i n ­dustrisamhälle
(1972). This study meanwhile reflected a new
tendency in the project: that of combining emigration with in­ternal
migration, including seasonal movements ( a r b e t s v a n d ¬
ringar) from agrarian parishes in Dalarna and Värmland to
saw-mills and ironworks in southern and western Norrland.
Some of these seasonal workers emigrated from Hälsingland
and Västernorrland to North America. In some cases, although
not very often, there was a political background, for example
a conflict between a powerful employer and socialistic workers
in Ljusne in 1905 and 1906.
The second dissertation of this type was Lars Göran Tede¬
brand's book, Västernorrland och N o r d a m e r i k a 1875-1913. U t ­v
a n d r i n g och återinvandring (1972). Special attention was paid
to those emigrants who returned to Sweden. Tedebrand points
out that they normally spent a short time in America, usually
four years or less, and that the great majority settled in their
old home parishes in Sweden. He stresses the connection be­tween
emigration and the expansion of the lumber companies'
land purchases from farmers, many of whom chose to go to
America after selling. Like other members of the group, Tede­brand
confirms a theory launched by Eric De Geer in 1959 (in
an article in Y m e r ) , that so-called "urban influence fields" ex­plain
many of the regional variations in emigration: in areas
around large cities, such as Stockholm and Göteborg, but also
around provincial centers like Sundsvall, Härnösand, Örebro,
and Jönköping, migrants often preferred the capital or the pro­vincial
town to North America, whereas the transatlantic
emigration became a more natural alternative for people living
in remote parishes without any traditional urban connection.
Rondahl, Tedebrand, and some younger members of the Upp-
208
Ala group have been much interested in migration in northern
Swedish provinces. Another part of the country is the topic of
Hans Norman's dissertation, Från B e r g s l a g e n t i l l N o r d a m e r i k a.
S t u d i e r i migrationsmönster, social rörlighet och d e m o g r a f i sk
s t r u k t u r med utgångspunkt från Örebro län 1851-1915 (1974).
The combination of internal and external migration is very
strong in this investigation, which pays, at the same time, much
attention to social mobility connected with emigration. Örebro
is shown to have been the center of an urban influence field
whereas, for instance, the remote district of Karlskoga had a
very high frequency of emigration. Norman puts a heavy em­phasis
on the importance of the "stock effect," or tradition of
emigration: in parishes where an early connection with some
part of North America was established, as between Karlskoga
and western Wisconsin, the predilection for emigration remained
very strong until the 1920s, especially among relatives and neigh­bors
of the pioneers.
Norman was the first one in the group to publish a study based
on the so-called "cohort method": all men born in 1874 and 1875
and living in Örebro at the age of twenty were followed up to
the age of thirty-five, with analysis of changes in their social
status and geographical residence. Church registration in Swe­den
makes it possible to use such a method with a loss of only
something like 5-6 per cent of the individuals involved. In the
United States and many other countries such research is not
practicable.
Mass emigration from Sweden to North America was long
regarded as a predominantly rural phenomenon, whose main
motive was land hunger among those who had no chance to
establish themselves as farmers in Sweden. To the Uppsala
group, it has meanwhile been quite clear that urban factors
played an important role in the emigration. Here Fred Nils-son's
dissertation—the first dissertation published within the
group—deserves special mention. Its topic is E m i g r a t i o n e n från
S t o c k h o l m t i l l N o r d a m e r i k a 1880-1893 (1970). Nilsson shows
that people born outside Stockholm were overrepresented among
the emigrants from the capital, but at the same time he points
out that the majority of these migrants had lived a considerable
time in Stockholm or in other urban environments before they
left for America. Consequently, urban factors must have played
207
a decisive role in their emigration. Changing conditions with­in,
for instance, the metal and the textile industries had a heavy
impact. A very numerous group among the emigrants were
the housemaids, whose wages, housing conditions, and social
status were constantly bad, compared with possibilities in North
America. Another point in Nilsson's investigation is the cor­relation
between the birthplaces of the emigrants and their fre­quency
of emigration. Those who had moved to Stockholm
from typical emigrant districts in, for example, Småland were,
as a consequence of their personal relations with the United
States, much more inclined to emigrate than those who were
born in the provinces around Stockholm, which had the lowest
frequency of emigration in the whole country.
Nilsson's conclusions on urban emigration have to a high de­gree
been confirmed by Bo Kronborg and Thomas Nilsson in
their common dissertation, S t a d s f l y t t a r e . I n d u s t r i a l i s e r i n g , mi­g
r a t i o n o c h s o c i a l m o b i l i t e t med utgångspunkt från H a l m s t ad
1870-1910 (1975). (See review in this issue of the QUARTERLY.)
Halmstad is the provincial center of Halland, one of the most
agrarian parts of Sweden and, at the same time, the län whose
frequency of emigration was the highest in Sweden. The co­hort
method, now including women, was used. A broad stream
of young rural workers and maids moved from the countryside
to Halmstad; the majority of these migrants were women. Some
of them were disappointed and therefore continued on to North
America. As in Örebro län, it is possible to see a correlation be­tween
geographical setting and social mobility.
The numerous local studies give a clear picture of the social
structure of the emigrants. The great majority of them were
young men and women without any landed property or enter­prise
or fixed employment within the public sector of society.
At an early stage, there was a shift from family and group emi­gration
to individual departures. A large percentage of sons
and daughters of farmers (bönder) and crofters ( t o r p a r e ) emi­grated,
but not the farmers and crofters themselves. Farm­hands
and maids were especially numerous, but married farm­hands
with payment in kind, so-called s t a t a r e , stayed at home.
Furthermore, young workers and apprentices, as well as en­gineers
and foremen, took an intensive part in the emigration,
whereas emigrating industrial employers and shop-keepers were
208
rare. All types of public servants, even those who had low
salaries, had a very low frequency of emigration. The emigrants
were mostly poor but not extremely poor. For most proletarian
groups, even the low cost of passenger tickets was often a seri­ous
obstacle to emigration, and psychological factors also had a
restraining effect.
The study of emigration has been more and more connected
with investigations of internal migration. Here Sune Åkerman
has played a leading role. At the Nordic Historians' Meeting in
Copenhagen in 1971, where emigration was one of the main
themes, he presented a report on internal and external migra­tion
( I n t e r n b e f o l k n i n g s o m f l y t t n i n g och e m i g r a t i o n ) . Åkerman
stresses the distinction between the shorter, "circular" move­ments,
very frequent already in pre-industrial Nordic society,
and the longer, "effective" movements which influenced the
balance between different parts of Scandinavia, as well as be­tween
rural and urban areas. Trans-Atlantic emigration is a
special type of effective movement; in a great many cases, it
led to a change from rural to urban or industrial occupations.
Åkerman also puts strong emphasis on the self-generating
power of the emigration and the changes it underwent from its
start to its culmination and finally to its decline. He has been
influenced by international theoretical debate and has intro­duced
in Sweden the American AID method (Automatic Inter­action
Detectors), which makes it possible to measure different
migratory factors and compare them with each other. In briefer
papers (for instance in S c a n d i a , 1974), as well as in a longer,
unpublished manuscript, Swedish and S c a n d i n a v i a n P o p u l a t i on
M o b i l i t y , Åkerman has analyzed Swedish demography, migra­tion,
and social mobility from different aspects. Together with
five other Uppsala scholars, three of them belonging to our re­search
group (Anders Norberg, Ingrid Eriksson, and John Rog­ers)
, he published the volume, A r i s t o c r a t s , F a r m e r s a n d P r o ­l
e t a r i a n s : Essays i n Swedish D e m o g r a p h i c H i s t o r y (1973).
One of the tasks for the Uppsala group has been to analyze
Swedish attitudes toward the United States during different
periods. Outside the group, Nils Runeby studied a pre-emigra¬
tion period, 1820-1860 (1969). Changes in Swedish public opin­ion
during the American Civil War have been pointed out by
Kjell Bondestad in his l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g . (See also a paper by
200
him in this QUARTERLY, 1968). Bondestad shows that Swedish
attitudes were to a high degree dependent on the fortunes of
war in America. Fred Nilsson has, in his dissertation, pointed
out that those Stockholm newspapers that were read in the
1880s mainly by those groups that recruited the majority of
emigrants gave a predominantly dark picture of the capitalistic
United States, although they were not so hostile toward emi­gration
as were the conservative newspapers.
When emigration, after a period characterized by rather low
figures, began to increase again after the turn of the century,
this gave rise for the first time to widespread disquietude in
Sweden. Thus a debate started, leading in 1907 to the appoint­ment
of a special committee, E m i g r a t i o n s u t r e d n i n g e n . Its pre­history
has been investigated by Ann-Sofie Kälvemark in her
dissertation, R e a k t i o n e n m o t u t v a n d r i n g e n . Emigrationsfrågan
i svensk debatt och p o l i t i k 1901-1904 (1972). Two groups were
found to be especially hostile to emigration: the military officers
and other supporters of a strong defense, and the agrarian em­ployers.
Their reasons were anxiety over a possible lack of
soldiers and a shortage of agrarian workers. Kälvemark refutes,
however, the wide-pread interpretation that the desire of avoid­ing
military service was a leading cause of emigration, and she
points out that Swedish agriculture lost more people as a con­sequence
of migration to industrial areas than by emigration.
But it was more convenient and patriotic to attack emigration
than to blame industry.
A consequence of mass emigration was the founding of emi­grant
agencies, which cooperated with the large shipping com­panies.
Thanks to a discovery made in Västergötland by an
earlier scholar (O. Thörn), Berit Brattne has been able to ana­lyze
the activities of an emigrant agency in Göteborg. In her
dissertation, Bröderna L a r s s o n , E n s t u d i e i svensk emigranta¬
gentverksamhet under 1 8 8 0 - t a l e t (1973), she has shown that
neither the agencies nor the shipping companies were able to
influence the mass movement to any visible degree, for instance,
by lowering ticket prices during periods of low emigration. The
agencies functioned mostly as travel bureaus and their work
was normally not very profitable, although results were improved
through combination with other kinds of business. Their cor­respondence
was very comprehensive and they were in contact
210
with many people who considered emigrating but never did.
Consequently it seems that a large proportion of the total Swed­ish
population consisted of potential emigrants. Another mem­ber
of the research group, Margot Höjfors, has found documents
from another emigrant agency, in Kalmar.
For the Uppsala group it has been important to follow the
Swedes on the other side of the Atlantic. In his dissertation,
Swedes i n C h i c a g o : A D e m o g r a p h i c a n d S o c i a l Study of t h e 1846-
1880 I m m i g r a t i o n (1971), Ulf Beijbom was able to combine Swed­ish
churchbooks with American census material, and also with
Swedish-American church records, which were constructed in
the same informative way as their Swedish counterparts. Thanks
to grants from the Wallenberg Foundation, it has been possible
for the Emigrant Institute in Växjö, under Beijbom's leadership,
to microfilm these documents, which are widely scattered
throughout the United States; other members of the Uppsala
group have contributed to this project. The majority of the
Chicago Swedes came from rural districts, but many had al­ready
been familiar at home with urban conditions. The author
analyzes the old Swedish settlement in central Chicago, along
Chicago Avenue—the so-called "Svenska B o n d e g a t a n " (Swedish
Farmers' Street)—and follows the Swedes as they gradually
moved out to new parts of the metropolis. Within the Swedish
population in Chicago there was a clear dominance of women,
many of them taking jobs as housemaids in non-Swedish families
in different parts of the city. On the other hand, Hans Norman
found a strong male dominance in the Swedish settlements in
western Wisconsin, where, consequently, almost every young
woman married and the number of children, relative to the
total population, became higher than in Sweden, although the
fertility per woman was not exceptionally high.
In many of the studies already mentioned observations have
been made about the similarity between the Swedish background
of different emigrant groups and their new milieu in America.
Sons and daughters of farmers, for instance, preferred to a high
degree the agrarian districts in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or other
parts of the Middle West. Emigrants from the lumbering areas
in Northern Sweden usually went to Michigan or Canada. Black­smiths
and miners from the central parts of Sweden most likely
settled in cities like New Britain or Hartford, Connecticut, or
211
Worcester, Massachusetts. Many emigrants went directly from
Swedish cities to, for instance, Chicago.
In Chicago, there arose, as Beijbom has pointed out, a contrast
between the majority of the Swedes, coming from rural, non-intellectual,
conservative, and religious (mostly Lutheran)
milieus, and a more urban, academic, liberal, and secular minor­ity.
Both groups were, for instance, represented among the
Swedish-American newspapers. The importance of literary and
religious activities during a later period has been investigated
by Sture Lindmark in his dissertation, Swedish A m e r i c a 1914-
1932: Studies i n E t h n i c i t y w i t h Emphasis on I l l i n o i s a n d M i n n e ­s
o t a (1971). Lindmark has followed the development of the
Augustana Synod and other Swedish church groups as well as
that of the newspapers, book publishing, etc., and clubs and
social organizations, which became especially important during
the Depression, 1929-32. He also studies the frequency of inter­marriage
within different Swedish settlements. His conclusion
is that the Swedes held rather strongly together until the 1920s,
when large-scale emigration from Sweden ceased and isolation­ism
and xenophobia in the United States increased. Ethnic main­tenance
was, according to Lindmark, about the same among the
Swedes as among, for instance, the Norwegians and the Germans.
Lindmark also deals with political attitudes among the Swed­ish-
Americans, especially during World War I, which was a
trying time for all ethnic minorities. Swedish influence was
strongest in Minnesota, where Scandinavians played a leading
role from the turn of the century (cf. two papers by Sten Carls­son
1970, 1973). One of the most prominent Swedish-American
politicians in that state was Charles A. Lindbergh, whose activi­ties
were studied by Richard Lucas in his dissertation, C h a r l es
A u g u s t L i n d b e r g h , Sr.: A Case Study of C o n g r e s s i o n a l I n s u r ­gency,
1906-1912 (1974). Lindberg's father, a former member of
the Swedish Riksdag, settled in Minnesota when his son was
very young. Lindbergh himself joined the Republican party,
but belonged to its insurgent wing, in which he was one of its
most outspoken congressmen. Partly following midwestern
populist traditions, he emphasized the interests of the rural
areas and small towns as opposed to the "capitalistic" and "pluto­cratic"
tendencies of the big cities. During World War I, Lind­bergh
came out as a strong isolationist. He was supported by
212
many voters, among them numerous Swedes, but came into con­flict
with official America as well as with some influential Swed­ish-
Americans.
The research project also includes Latin America. Karin
Stenbeck has written a l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g on Swedish emigra­tion
to Brazil from the 1860s to the 1890s. The majority of
these emigrants came from Stockholm and from the Sundsvall
district in Västernorrlands län. Some of them were seriously
misled by unscrupulous agents and they did not have the same
success in the New World as many Swedes had in North Amer­ica.
Another type of research is represented by Harald Runblom
in his dissertation, Svenska företag i L a t i n a m e r i k a . Etablerings¬
mönster och förhandlingstaktik 1910-1940 (1917). He describes
how some leading Swedish companies (Aga, L . M. Ericsson,
Svenska Tändsticksaktiebolaget, etc.) tried to establish them­selves
in Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and other Latin-
American countries. This task was difficult, especially because
of the frequent political changes in the different countries. When
the Swedish representatives, thanks to personal contacts and
sometimes through bribes, had managed to influence economic
decisions in a country, it frequently happened that all or almost
all efforts were wasted, since new groups entered the political
scene. Some progress was made, however. Ivar Kreuger's at­tempts
to obtain a monopoly for Swedish matches in some Latin-
American countries are especially interesting. He tried, as he
did some years later in Europe, to obtain a foothold by extending
great credits to the governments. It may be added that Run­blom
has interested himself also in the relations between Sweden
and Canada and the American West Coast.
The research group has attracted some scholars whose own
subjects have been rather distant from the topic, "Sweden and
America." Thus, both Swedish-Ethiopian and Swedish-Chinese
relations have been discussed at project seminars, as well as
problems connected with Dutch migration. Jan Sundin's dis­sertation,
Främmande studenter vid Uppsala U n i v e r s i t e t före
a n d r a världskriget. En s t u d i e i svensk s t u d e n t m i g r a t i o n (1973),
deals mostly with foreign students in Uppsala coming from
European countries, but likewise gives attention to a small group
of Swedish Americans returning to Sweden to study.
213
The Uppsala group has always had a very open attitude. It has
established close contacts with scholars in Göteborg, Lund, Co­penhagen,
Oslo, and Åbo, as well as with local groups in, for
instance, Växjö (around the Emigrant Institute), Karlstad
(around the Emigrant Register, led by Sigurd Gustavson) and
Långasjö (in Småland). There has also been cooperation with
American, English, Dutch, German, and Hungarian scholars.
Many of its members belong to the Swedish section of the
Swedish Pioneer Historical Society. Representatives of many
disciplines, such as economic history, economics, sociology, sta­tistics,
geography, church history, and pedagogy have taken
part in discussions and conferences arranged by the group. At
present, historical demography, including Swedish-American
demography, is at the center of the picture.
Some early results of the research were presented in a special
issue of SWEDISH PIONEER HISTORICAL QUARTERLY in 1968. An
anthology, edited by Ann-Sofie Kälvemark, U t v a n d r i n g . D e n
svenska e m i g r a t i o n e n t i l l A m e r i k a i h i s t o r i s k t p e r s p e k t i v (see
review in this issue of the QUARTERLY) was published in 1973;
it includes ten essays, eight of them written by members of the
Uppsala group. A final report, F r o m Sweden to A m e r i c a : A
H i s t o r y of t h e M i g r a t i o n (Uppsala and Minneapolis, 1976),
edited by Harald Rundblom, came out in April of this year.
The project itself has now reached its final stage, but the sec­tion
devoted to American history in the Department of History
at the University of Uppsala will continue its investigations of
different aspects of Swedish-American relations, although on
a smaller scale than in recent years. Many questions have been
raised and also been answered, more or less completely, but
many tasks are still ahead.
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SWEDEN AND AMERICA AFTER 1860:
A RESEARCH PROJECT'
STEN CARLSSON
During the last few years, reference has been made in the
SWEDISH PIONEER HISTORICAL QUARTERLY to the research project
on Sweden and America conducted by the Department of History
at the University of Uppsala. Some of the books and papers
produced by members of the project have also been reviewed.
The project itself has, however, never been presented in full
figure.
The project was started in 1962, thanks to a generous five-year
grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. The
Council had chosen Uppsala as a convenient center in Northern
Europe for studies in American civilization and decided, after
discussions with the rector of the University, Torgny Segerstedt,
and some representatives of the departments of English and
History, to support a professorship in American literature and
position for a research assistant ( f o r s k a r a s s i s t e n t ) in history. At
the same time, money was given to buy books within the fields of
American literature and American history.
The Council set up a condition for its grant: after five years
the Swedish authorities had to take full responsibility for the
activities now started. This condition was fulfilled. The Swedish
Government took over the professorship in American literature
and the research within the Department of History was con­tinued
and widened, thanks to grants from Statens H u m a n i s t i s ka
Forskningsråd and Riksbankens J u b i l e u m s f o n d . A special Sec­tion
for American History ( A v d e l n i n g e n för a m e r i k a n s k h i s t o r i a)
was founded in 1962 in the Department of History and at the
same time a research project, called "Sweden and America After
1860." This project was—as are all similar projects—to be lim­ited
in time. It will be finished in 1976, but the Section will re­main
and the research continue. The research project has been
supervised by me from its beginning but the current daily work
has been led by the research assistants, namely Håkan Berggren
(1962-66), Sune Åkerman (1966-73), and Harald Runblom
204
(1974-). About thirty postgraduate students ( d o k t o r a n d e r and
l i c e n t i a n d e r ) have belonged to the project, as well as many
undergraduates. Thirteen of the members have published their
dissertations for the Ph.D. within the framework of the project,
in the series S t u d i a H i s t o r i c a U p s a l i e n s i a . Five others wrote un­published
theses ( l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g a r ) for the filosofie l i c e n t i a t ­examen
(this degree no longer exists). The final number of
Ph.D.s (filosofie d o k t o r e r ) within the group will be something
like twenty.
Research on the basis of projects was an innovation for the
Faculties of Liberal Arts in the early 1960s. Our project is one
of the oldest and largest in the humanistic disciplines. Many
times before groups of scholars on the postgraduate level had
cooperated by writing dissertations in the same field. But before
the 1960s they had had no common staff that furthered their
work by collecting excerpts, making statistical calculations, tak­ing
care of the typing, etc., and no common localities where
it was possible to have daily, stimulating discussions and to
receive guidance from professors and other teachers.
Some critics insist that this new system abolishes individual
responsibility and independence. This is not true. First, it must
be remembered that all cooperation and guidance is voluntary
and that it is quite possible to work alone. Besides, the author of
a dissertation still has to defend it in public and is quite re­sponsible
for his or her part of the project. A special situation,
not necessarily connected with the project research, occurs
when two students write a dissertation together. As scholars
they are both responsible for the whole text, but at the public
disputation they have to divide responsibility for the different
chapters between themselves.
The central theme of the project has been the mass emigra­tion
of more than one million people from Sweden to North
America. A great share of the attention has been paid to the
Swedish background of this movement. For this purpose, dif­ferent
parts of Sweden have been studied intensively. Two im­portant
investigations of this type are still unpublished, namely
Ulf Ebbeson's and Paul Noreen's l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g a r on north­western
Östergötland and southern Dalsland, respectively. Emi­gration
from Småland and Öland has been analysed briefly (S.
Carlsson in Historielärarnas förenings årrskrift. 1966-67). Some
205
members of the Uppsala group have studied emigration and in­ternal
migration from provinces in Finland, namely Swedish-speaking
Åland (a l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g by Frank Blomfelt) and
partially Swedish-speaking Österbotten (a paper by E. DeGeer
and H. Wester, published in Österbotten in 1975).
The first dissertation dealing with emigration from a rural
area was Björn Rondahl's book, E m i g r a t i o n , f o l k o m f l y t t n i n g och
säsongarbete i e t t sågverksdistrikt i södra Hälsingland 1865-
1910. Söderala k o m m u n med särskild hänsyn t i l l L j u s n e i n ­dustrisamhälle
(1972). This study meanwhile reflected a new
tendency in the project: that of combining emigration with in­ternal
migration, including seasonal movements ( a r b e t s v a n d ¬
ringar) from agrarian parishes in Dalarna and Värmland to
saw-mills and ironworks in southern and western Norrland.
Some of these seasonal workers emigrated from Hälsingland
and Västernorrland to North America. In some cases, although
not very often, there was a political background, for example
a conflict between a powerful employer and socialistic workers
in Ljusne in 1905 and 1906.
The second dissertation of this type was Lars Göran Tede¬
brand's book, Västernorrland och N o r d a m e r i k a 1875-1913. U t ­v
a n d r i n g och återinvandring (1972). Special attention was paid
to those emigrants who returned to Sweden. Tedebrand points
out that they normally spent a short time in America, usually
four years or less, and that the great majority settled in their
old home parishes in Sweden. He stresses the connection be­tween
emigration and the expansion of the lumber companies'
land purchases from farmers, many of whom chose to go to
America after selling. Like other members of the group, Tede­brand
confirms a theory launched by Eric De Geer in 1959 (in
an article in Y m e r ) , that so-called "urban influence fields" ex­plain
many of the regional variations in emigration: in areas
around large cities, such as Stockholm and Göteborg, but also
around provincial centers like Sundsvall, Härnösand, Örebro,
and Jönköping, migrants often preferred the capital or the pro­vincial
town to North America, whereas the transatlantic
emigration became a more natural alternative for people living
in remote parishes without any traditional urban connection.
Rondahl, Tedebrand, and some younger members of the Upp-
208
Ala group have been much interested in migration in northern
Swedish provinces. Another part of the country is the topic of
Hans Norman's dissertation, Från B e r g s l a g e n t i l l N o r d a m e r i k a.
S t u d i e r i migrationsmönster, social rörlighet och d e m o g r a f i sk
s t r u k t u r med utgångspunkt från Örebro län 1851-1915 (1974).
The combination of internal and external migration is very
strong in this investigation, which pays, at the same time, much
attention to social mobility connected with emigration. Örebro
is shown to have been the center of an urban influence field
whereas, for instance, the remote district of Karlskoga had a
very high frequency of emigration. Norman puts a heavy em­phasis
on the importance of the "stock effect," or tradition of
emigration: in parishes where an early connection with some
part of North America was established, as between Karlskoga
and western Wisconsin, the predilection for emigration remained
very strong until the 1920s, especially among relatives and neigh­bors
of the pioneers.
Norman was the first one in the group to publish a study based
on the so-called "cohort method": all men born in 1874 and 1875
and living in Örebro at the age of twenty were followed up to
the age of thirty-five, with analysis of changes in their social
status and geographical residence. Church registration in Swe­den
makes it possible to use such a method with a loss of only
something like 5-6 per cent of the individuals involved. In the
United States and many other countries such research is not
practicable.
Mass emigration from Sweden to North America was long
regarded as a predominantly rural phenomenon, whose main
motive was land hunger among those who had no chance to
establish themselves as farmers in Sweden. To the Uppsala
group, it has meanwhile been quite clear that urban factors
played an important role in the emigration. Here Fred Nils-son's
dissertation—the first dissertation published within the
group—deserves special mention. Its topic is E m i g r a t i o n e n från
S t o c k h o l m t i l l N o r d a m e r i k a 1880-1893 (1970). Nilsson shows
that people born outside Stockholm were overrepresented among
the emigrants from the capital, but at the same time he points
out that the majority of these migrants had lived a considerable
time in Stockholm or in other urban environments before they
left for America. Consequently, urban factors must have played
207
a decisive role in their emigration. Changing conditions with­in,
for instance, the metal and the textile industries had a heavy
impact. A very numerous group among the emigrants were
the housemaids, whose wages, housing conditions, and social
status were constantly bad, compared with possibilities in North
America. Another point in Nilsson's investigation is the cor­relation
between the birthplaces of the emigrants and their fre­quency
of emigration. Those who had moved to Stockholm
from typical emigrant districts in, for example, Småland were,
as a consequence of their personal relations with the United
States, much more inclined to emigrate than those who were
born in the provinces around Stockholm, which had the lowest
frequency of emigration in the whole country.
Nilsson's conclusions on urban emigration have to a high de­gree
been confirmed by Bo Kronborg and Thomas Nilsson in
their common dissertation, S t a d s f l y t t a r e . I n d u s t r i a l i s e r i n g , mi­g
r a t i o n o c h s o c i a l m o b i l i t e t med utgångspunkt från H a l m s t ad
1870-1910 (1975). (See review in this issue of the QUARTERLY.)
Halmstad is the provincial center of Halland, one of the most
agrarian parts of Sweden and, at the same time, the län whose
frequency of emigration was the highest in Sweden. The co­hort
method, now including women, was used. A broad stream
of young rural workers and maids moved from the countryside
to Halmstad; the majority of these migrants were women. Some
of them were disappointed and therefore continued on to North
America. As in Örebro län, it is possible to see a correlation be­tween
geographical setting and social mobility.
The numerous local studies give a clear picture of the social
structure of the emigrants. The great majority of them were
young men and women without any landed property or enter­prise
or fixed employment within the public sector of society.
At an early stage, there was a shift from family and group emi­gration
to individual departures. A large percentage of sons
and daughters of farmers (bönder) and crofters ( t o r p a r e ) emi­grated,
but not the farmers and crofters themselves. Farm­hands
and maids were especially numerous, but married farm­hands
with payment in kind, so-called s t a t a r e , stayed at home.
Furthermore, young workers and apprentices, as well as en­gineers
and foremen, took an intensive part in the emigration,
whereas emigrating industrial employers and shop-keepers were
208
rare. All types of public servants, even those who had low
salaries, had a very low frequency of emigration. The emigrants
were mostly poor but not extremely poor. For most proletarian
groups, even the low cost of passenger tickets was often a seri­ous
obstacle to emigration, and psychological factors also had a
restraining effect.
The study of emigration has been more and more connected
with investigations of internal migration. Here Sune Åkerman
has played a leading role. At the Nordic Historians' Meeting in
Copenhagen in 1971, where emigration was one of the main
themes, he presented a report on internal and external migra­tion
( I n t e r n b e f o l k n i n g s o m f l y t t n i n g och e m i g r a t i o n ) . Åkerman
stresses the distinction between the shorter, "circular" move­ments,
very frequent already in pre-industrial Nordic society,
and the longer, "effective" movements which influenced the
balance between different parts of Scandinavia, as well as be­tween
rural and urban areas. Trans-Atlantic emigration is a
special type of effective movement; in a great many cases, it
led to a change from rural to urban or industrial occupations.
Åkerman also puts strong emphasis on the self-generating
power of the emigration and the changes it underwent from its
start to its culmination and finally to its decline. He has been
influenced by international theoretical debate and has intro­duced
in Sweden the American AID method (Automatic Inter­action
Detectors), which makes it possible to measure different
migratory factors and compare them with each other. In briefer
papers (for instance in S c a n d i a , 1974), as well as in a longer,
unpublished manuscript, Swedish and S c a n d i n a v i a n P o p u l a t i on
M o b i l i t y , Åkerman has analyzed Swedish demography, migra­tion,
and social mobility from different aspects. Together with
five other Uppsala scholars, three of them belonging to our re­search
group (Anders Norberg, Ingrid Eriksson, and John Rog­ers)
, he published the volume, A r i s t o c r a t s , F a r m e r s a n d P r o ­l
e t a r i a n s : Essays i n Swedish D e m o g r a p h i c H i s t o r y (1973).
One of the tasks for the Uppsala group has been to analyze
Swedish attitudes toward the United States during different
periods. Outside the group, Nils Runeby studied a pre-emigra¬
tion period, 1820-1860 (1969). Changes in Swedish public opin­ion
during the American Civil War have been pointed out by
Kjell Bondestad in his l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g . (See also a paper by
200
him in this QUARTERLY, 1968). Bondestad shows that Swedish
attitudes were to a high degree dependent on the fortunes of
war in America. Fred Nilsson has, in his dissertation, pointed
out that those Stockholm newspapers that were read in the
1880s mainly by those groups that recruited the majority of
emigrants gave a predominantly dark picture of the capitalistic
United States, although they were not so hostile toward emi­gration
as were the conservative newspapers.
When emigration, after a period characterized by rather low
figures, began to increase again after the turn of the century,
this gave rise for the first time to widespread disquietude in
Sweden. Thus a debate started, leading in 1907 to the appoint­ment
of a special committee, E m i g r a t i o n s u t r e d n i n g e n . Its pre­history
has been investigated by Ann-Sofie Kälvemark in her
dissertation, R e a k t i o n e n m o t u t v a n d r i n g e n . Emigrationsfrågan
i svensk debatt och p o l i t i k 1901-1904 (1972). Two groups were
found to be especially hostile to emigration: the military officers
and other supporters of a strong defense, and the agrarian em­ployers.
Their reasons were anxiety over a possible lack of
soldiers and a shortage of agrarian workers. Kälvemark refutes,
however, the wide-pread interpretation that the desire of avoid­ing
military service was a leading cause of emigration, and she
points out that Swedish agriculture lost more people as a con­sequence
of migration to industrial areas than by emigration.
But it was more convenient and patriotic to attack emigration
than to blame industry.
A consequence of mass emigration was the founding of emi­grant
agencies, which cooperated with the large shipping com­panies.
Thanks to a discovery made in Västergötland by an
earlier scholar (O. Thörn), Berit Brattne has been able to ana­lyze
the activities of an emigrant agency in Göteborg. In her
dissertation, Bröderna L a r s s o n , E n s t u d i e i svensk emigranta¬
gentverksamhet under 1 8 8 0 - t a l e t (1973), she has shown that
neither the agencies nor the shipping companies were able to
influence the mass movement to any visible degree, for instance,
by lowering ticket prices during periods of low emigration. The
agencies functioned mostly as travel bureaus and their work
was normally not very profitable, although results were improved
through combination with other kinds of business. Their cor­respondence
was very comprehensive and they were in contact
210
with many people who considered emigrating but never did.
Consequently it seems that a large proportion of the total Swed­ish
population consisted of potential emigrants. Another mem­ber
of the research group, Margot Höjfors, has found documents
from another emigrant agency, in Kalmar.
For the Uppsala group it has been important to follow the
Swedes on the other side of the Atlantic. In his dissertation,
Swedes i n C h i c a g o : A D e m o g r a p h i c a n d S o c i a l Study of t h e 1846-
1880 I m m i g r a t i o n (1971), Ulf Beijbom was able to combine Swed­ish
churchbooks with American census material, and also with
Swedish-American church records, which were constructed in
the same informative way as their Swedish counterparts. Thanks
to grants from the Wallenberg Foundation, it has been possible
for the Emigrant Institute in Växjö, under Beijbom's leadership,
to microfilm these documents, which are widely scattered
throughout the United States; other members of the Uppsala
group have contributed to this project. The majority of the
Chicago Swedes came from rural districts, but many had al­ready
been familiar at home with urban conditions. The author
analyzes the old Swedish settlement in central Chicago, along
Chicago Avenue—the so-called "Svenska B o n d e g a t a n " (Swedish
Farmers' Street)—and follows the Swedes as they gradually
moved out to new parts of the metropolis. Within the Swedish
population in Chicago there was a clear dominance of women,
many of them taking jobs as housemaids in non-Swedish families
in different parts of the city. On the other hand, Hans Norman
found a strong male dominance in the Swedish settlements in
western Wisconsin, where, consequently, almost every young
woman married and the number of children, relative to the
total population, became higher than in Sweden, although the
fertility per woman was not exceptionally high.
In many of the studies already mentioned observations have
been made about the similarity between the Swedish background
of different emigrant groups and their new milieu in America.
Sons and daughters of farmers, for instance, preferred to a high
degree the agrarian districts in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or other
parts of the Middle West. Emigrants from the lumbering areas
in Northern Sweden usually went to Michigan or Canada. Black­smiths
and miners from the central parts of Sweden most likely
settled in cities like New Britain or Hartford, Connecticut, or
211
Worcester, Massachusetts. Many emigrants went directly from
Swedish cities to, for instance, Chicago.
In Chicago, there arose, as Beijbom has pointed out, a contrast
between the majority of the Swedes, coming from rural, non-intellectual,
conservative, and religious (mostly Lutheran)
milieus, and a more urban, academic, liberal, and secular minor­ity.
Both groups were, for instance, represented among the
Swedish-American newspapers. The importance of literary and
religious activities during a later period has been investigated
by Sture Lindmark in his dissertation, Swedish A m e r i c a 1914-
1932: Studies i n E t h n i c i t y w i t h Emphasis on I l l i n o i s a n d M i n n e ­s
o t a (1971). Lindmark has followed the development of the
Augustana Synod and other Swedish church groups as well as
that of the newspapers, book publishing, etc., and clubs and
social organizations, which became especially important during
the Depression, 1929-32. He also studies the frequency of inter­marriage
within different Swedish settlements. His conclusion
is that the Swedes held rather strongly together until the 1920s,
when large-scale emigration from Sweden ceased and isolation­ism
and xenophobia in the United States increased. Ethnic main­tenance
was, according to Lindmark, about the same among the
Swedes as among, for instance, the Norwegians and the Germans.
Lindmark also deals with political attitudes among the Swed­ish-
Americans, especially during World War I, which was a
trying time for all ethnic minorities. Swedish influence was
strongest in Minnesota, where Scandinavians played a leading
role from the turn of the century (cf. two papers by Sten Carls­son
1970, 1973). One of the most prominent Swedish-American
politicians in that state was Charles A. Lindbergh, whose activi­ties
were studied by Richard Lucas in his dissertation, C h a r l es
A u g u s t L i n d b e r g h , Sr.: A Case Study of C o n g r e s s i o n a l I n s u r ­gency,
1906-1912 (1974). Lindberg's father, a former member of
the Swedish Riksdag, settled in Minnesota when his son was
very young. Lindbergh himself joined the Republican party,
but belonged to its insurgent wing, in which he was one of its
most outspoken congressmen. Partly following midwestern
populist traditions, he emphasized the interests of the rural
areas and small towns as opposed to the "capitalistic" and "pluto­cratic"
tendencies of the big cities. During World War I, Lind­bergh
came out as a strong isolationist. He was supported by
212
many voters, among them numerous Swedes, but came into con­flict
with official America as well as with some influential Swed­ish-
Americans.
The research project also includes Latin America. Karin
Stenbeck has written a l i c e n t i a t a v h a n d l i n g on Swedish emigra­tion
to Brazil from the 1860s to the 1890s. The majority of
these emigrants came from Stockholm and from the Sundsvall
district in Västernorrlands län. Some of them were seriously
misled by unscrupulous agents and they did not have the same
success in the New World as many Swedes had in North Amer­ica.
Another type of research is represented by Harald Runblom
in his dissertation, Svenska företag i L a t i n a m e r i k a . Etablerings¬
mönster och förhandlingstaktik 1910-1940 (1917). He describes
how some leading Swedish companies (Aga, L . M. Ericsson,
Svenska Tändsticksaktiebolaget, etc.) tried to establish them­selves
in Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and other Latin-
American countries. This task was difficult, especially because
of the frequent political changes in the different countries. When
the Swedish representatives, thanks to personal contacts and
sometimes through bribes, had managed to influence economic
decisions in a country, it frequently happened that all or almost
all efforts were wasted, since new groups entered the political
scene. Some progress was made, however. Ivar Kreuger's at­tempts
to obtain a monopoly for Swedish matches in some Latin-
American countries are especially interesting. He tried, as he
did some years later in Europe, to obtain a foothold by extending
great credits to the governments. It may be added that Run­blom
has interested himself also in the relations between Sweden
and Canada and the American West Coast.
The research group has attracted some scholars whose own
subjects have been rather distant from the topic, "Sweden and
America." Thus, both Swedish-Ethiopian and Swedish-Chinese
relations have been discussed at project seminars, as well as
problems connected with Dutch migration. Jan Sundin's dis­sertation,
Främmande studenter vid Uppsala U n i v e r s i t e t före
a n d r a världskriget. En s t u d i e i svensk s t u d e n t m i g r a t i o n (1973),
deals mostly with foreign students in Uppsala coming from
European countries, but likewise gives attention to a small group
of Swedish Americans returning to Sweden to study.
213
The Uppsala group has always had a very open attitude. It has
established close contacts with scholars in Göteborg, Lund, Co­penhagen,
Oslo, and Åbo, as well as with local groups in, for
instance, Växjö (around the Emigrant Institute), Karlstad
(around the Emigrant Register, led by Sigurd Gustavson) and
Långasjö (in Småland). There has also been cooperation with
American, English, Dutch, German, and Hungarian scholars.
Many of its members belong to the Swedish section of the
Swedish Pioneer Historical Society. Representatives of many
disciplines, such as economic history, economics, sociology, sta­tistics,
geography, church history, and pedagogy have taken
part in discussions and conferences arranged by the group. At
present, historical demography, including Swedish-American
demography, is at the center of the picture.
Some early results of the research were presented in a special
issue of SWEDISH PIONEER HISTORICAL QUARTERLY in 1968. An
anthology, edited by Ann-Sofie Kälvemark, U t v a n d r i n g . D e n
svenska e m i g r a t i o n e n t i l l A m e r i k a i h i s t o r i s k t p e r s p e k t i v (see
review in this issue of the QUARTERLY) was published in 1973;
it includes ten essays, eight of them written by members of the
Uppsala group. A final report, F r o m Sweden to A m e r i c a : A
H i s t o r y of t h e M i g r a t i o n (Uppsala and Minneapolis, 1976),
edited by Harald Rundblom, came out in April of this year.
The project itself has now reached its final stage, but the sec­tion
devoted to American history in the Department of History
at the University of Uppsala will continue its investigations of
different aspects of Swedish-American relations, although on
a smaller scale than in recent years. Many questions have been
raised and also been answered, more or less completely, but
many tasks are still ahead.
214